Re-Imagining Emancipatory Politics Online: a Critical Political Economy Approach of Women’s Activist Media in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Empirical evidence has shown that digital platforms have opened up new possibilities for resistance activism and for the construction of alternatives to dominant discourses by those who otherwise are marginalised within mainstream political debates. This article reports on a study done to update the extant literature on the potential for political participation by activist women using online media in an authoritarian regime. Using the critical political economy framework, this was achieved by analysing the content of the blog pages of five Zimbabwean websites and interviewing the bloggers. A qualitative content analysis of the blogs and interview transcripts showed that blogs have widened communication spaces; that women’s voices are being amplified; and that women’s issues are being brought into the public sphere. However, structural impediments driven by state and economic power continue to impact on the myriad of power relations at the micro level of society, thereby diminishing full utilisation and potential of digital media. Thus, women’s empowerment remains, if at all, imagined.

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